Fire Bike
Season 1, Episodes 5,6,&7, Original Airdates 04/28/03 06/02/03 06/09/03
The Fire Bike was created by everyone at OCC, the project holding more emotional weight with its ties to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It was, as Paul Teutul Sr. put it, "not just an Orange County Chopper, it's a New York City Chopper." This bike follows Orange County Choppers around to most of their shows and is consistently a big hit.
The chopper was built as a tribute to the firefighters who died in the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. The custom paint job features the number "343" on the rear fender, representing the number of firefighters who died while saving civilians that day. It also features, as the very last part attached to the bike, a piece of steel that was recovered from Ground Zero. Paul Jr. welded the piece, which resembles a large rivet with the end opposite the head very jagged, onto a bracket made from diamond plate which was then attached to a cavity on top of the gas tank. This was done when the bike was presented to the firemen at one of the New York fire stations at the end of the episode.
During the New York Jets Bike episode, the Fire Bike was damaged during a highway accident. It was the New York City Fire Department that arrived to help and took special care in recovering the bike which was later repaired.